Visiting
by everworld2662
Summary: Harry remembers a few things about Lockhart. [HarryLockhart] [Oneoff] [Slash]


Visiting

A/N: Harry thinks about the past. A little drabble. Harry/Lockhart, thus, slash. Don't flame about the pairing, please.

* * *

_'Harry, Harry, Harry.'_

_Wasn't that the almost the first thing Lockhart had ever said to him? His name. Spoken with such life and gusto, three times, with a shake of his head and one of those Gilderoy winks that Harry had gotten so used to. He remembered standing outside the Greenhouse for ages before going in, shocked, no, _stunned_ by the brilliance of Lockhart's white teeth and the vehemence of his speech. He hadn't understood at all then, why he felt disarmed by Lockhart. Why he felt so strongly about him._

"Harry!"

"Professor Lockhart!" Harry turned and cultivated a surprised look as he stepped towards his old teacher.

"Harry, Harry, Harry, what are you doing here?"

The words almost seemed like a rebuke. Harry shrugged uncomfortably, standing in a white-washed room of Mungo's, staring at his former Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher and 3 time winner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award, and felt at loss for what to say.

Lockhart was lying in bed under extremely stiff white sheets. His flaxen hair was probably the most colourful thing in the room, crumpled into his eyes above the crooked smile he had aimed in Harry's direction. Even the photos on the bedside seemed sepia-coloured and faceless compared to Lockhart's glowing expression, and neither the stack of cards and letters nor the bunch of flowers sitting in a vase could brighten the room as much as Lockhart's dazzling smile and sky blue eyes. It gave Harry the impression that Lockhart was somehow too big for this room, or at least far too colourful. His vivacity was ill matched with the homely but simple paraphernalia that surrounded him. Harry tried to shrug these thoughts away.

"I've come to visit you, sir," he said aloud, honestly. But instead of moving closer to do so, Harry stood awkwardly in the doorway, wondering why he had come. He felt half-sick with pity as he looked at the vague, innocent expression on Lockhart's face.

"Oh, Harry, none of that _sir _business. I'm not your teacher anymore, so why don't you call me Gilderoy?"

Harry nearly choked.

_And then, Harry remembered, with a laugh, all the signed photo business! Had Lockhart really been meaning to do him a favor? Of course he had - poor, blundering Lockhart, so utterly blind to Harry's humiliation and dislike, and almost charmingly gauche as he beamed and carried on, adorably deluded in thinking that everyone liked him. He really had meant well…he always _did _mean well. And he _had _saved Harry from considerable embarrassment - making it worse along the way, of course. And all the time with the same style and dashing that was Lockhart's sizzling signature, and that Harry had come to know so well. His face had burnt when Lockhart pulled Harry to him and clutched him against his side for Colin Creevey's camera. At the time he thought it had been with humiliation, and certainly that was part of the reason, but looking back on it now, couldn't some of it have been being in such close quarters with Lockhart? And yet it was a feeling Harry had always had difficulty explaining. He wasn't...he didn't...perhaps a small part of him agreed with Mrs. Weasley's smitten assesment of Lockhart and his good looks, but that didn't...after all,__ that _thing _with Cho had definitely been a _thing.

"Well…uhm…Gilderoy, then." The word felt foreign but somehow fitting. "You're...doing a lot better since I last came in." 

Lockhart blinked up at him with those disturbingly feminine eyelashes. "Last came in? With…with your friend…" Lockhart's arm, resting beside him on the sheet, began to shake slightly and his eyes suddenly unfocused. Harry made a small sound of alarm. Was Gilderoy having some kind of fit? "Ronald...weasle…red."

Before Harry could react - though what he would have done, he had no idea - it was over. With a sigh of relief, Lockhart was easing back onto the bed, breathing slightly laboured. Abruptly weary but good-humoured, he raised his eyes to meet Harry's shocked ones and smiled. "There," he said after a moment. He sounded profoundly exhausted. "How was that?"

"Ronald Weasley," Harry said, a bit faintly. "My best friend. How much do you remember about him?"

"No more than I told you," Lockhart replied cheerfully. "Does he have red hair?"

Harry nodded, feeling extremely, uncontrollably sad. The cheerful way Lockhart was talking, the sunny smile on his face, the bouquet of flowers in the corner of the room, even the glittering pile of fan mail awaiting him on his bedside - none of it portrayed any of the horror of Lockhart's situation. How awful it must be, stuck in a place you had no memory of arriving at, trying to remember people you have forgotten, all the while collecting small tokens in an attempt at discovering your own identity. Harry suddenly remembered one of the carers when he had visited previously mentioning something about Gilderoy rediscovering his love of fanmail. Did Lockhart rediscover his own handwriting every time he put pen to paper in order to reply? 

And that awful _business with his arm! Gilderoy had spelled it for him, and of course, it had been a totally disaster - and he had ended up with bones to be re-grown! What a nightmare! Even now, Harry shuddered with the pain of the memory. All that for Lockhart! All that for a self-obsessed, cowardly liar! All that for Lockhart, once again._

Harry took another step forward, closer to his Professor.

"How much do you remember about me?" He found himself asking gingerly.

"Ah, Harry, Harry, Harry, how could I forget _you_?"

And the second time he visited him in hospital, and the way he said Harry's name, three times, was that when he realized, with a jolt, what he was really _doing there, standing in the white hospital room of his old Professor?_

_It had little to do with visiting._

"Do you remember…how you lost your memory?" Harry watched his teacher keenly as Lockhart mused.

"No," he said after a moment, and Harry's heart sunk strangely. "No, I don't." There was a hurt look on his child-like face. "Why? Do you?"

Harry shook his head, feeling like a liar. "No, Professor - Gilderoy. No, no, of course not. I would never…I mean, just no."

Lockhart looked up suddenly at met Harry's eyes, and Harry nearly gasped at the blueness. And he gasped at something else, too. "Something else" took the form of a hand on his.

"No!" he protested vehemently.

Lockhart smiled. "_Harry_…" he wheedled.

"No!" Harry repeated wildly. "No, we _can't_! You're my _teacher_-"

"I _was _your teacher, Harry. I'm not any_more_." Lockhart insisted, with that annoying habit of emphasizing every second word that he was so guilty of.

Harry still shook his head. "No, it's _wrong,_ and -"

But Lockhart had kissed him, Lockhart had pulled him closer, Lockhart had slanted his head carefully so that Harry wouldn't bang his hips against the metal bedpost.

_Pulling himself out of his memories with a regretful sigh, Harry turned and stared at the figure in the chair in front of him. How on earth could he have known it would turn out like this? But as Harry tilted his head for a kiss, he thought that he should have known._

_After all, wasn't it Gilderoy Lockhart who had taught him that it was natural to want a bit more once you've had that first taste?_

_

* * *

_

**Edited on the 29/11/07. Fiddled with the layout/format a little bit. Changed the title from _Visits _to _Visiting_.Rewrote some sections, added some sections - general revamp! Am happier with this (no more Brenda Starr dialogue!) but sadly, must come to terms with the fact that it will never be in character. Oh, well. It was fun. **

**On a side note, a thank you to all the reviewers. I was, and still am, most astounded by the quantity of people who read, liked, and weren't utterly horrified by the pairing. Thank you for your marvelously open minds and shameless flattery.**


End file.
